


Intimate Acquaintance

by methylviolet10b



Series: Intimate [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: ACD Canon Characters - Freeform, Angst and Humor, M/M, Porn With Plot, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:16:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Striking up an intimate acquaintance with another man is even more difficult when that man is Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intimate Acquaintance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> A gift for AutumnAtMidnite, prompted by something she mentioned (prompt at the end, as it's a bit spoilerish). 
> 
> **Warnings** : There is reference to a past attempt of coercion and hints of a non-consensual event or attempted event. There is nothing explicit and what actually occurred is somewhat open to interpretation, but if you find this kind of reference triggery, problematic, or just not your cup of tea, please press the back button now. In addition, this story contains multiple references to Victorian attitudes towards homosexuality, women, and relationships.

  
  
  
  
It is one thing to share rooms with a man. It is another thing to strike up an intimate acquaintance with one, to turn the commonplaces of shared meals and the comfort of a sitting-room fire into a genuine knowledge of a person, a deep and abiding relationship that goes beyond the surface courtesy required to accommodate living in the same quarters. The former is a relatively simple thing, even with the most unusual characters. The latter requires not only a certain congeniality of mind, temperament, or interests, but also a certain willingness to risk one’s own self, to extend the hand and the spirit, to chance rejection. Needless to say, the latter is the far more rare and difficult of the two endeavours.  
  
The task is even more daunting when the other man is Sherlock Holmes.  
  
Both my time at school and my experiences in the Army taught me well how to fall into an easy, casual acquaintanceship with those with whom I found myself sharing daily routines. Over time, I gained a certain reputation as a friendly enough comrade, a good chap to have in your corner, and someone not to cross. I had plenty of acquaintances, but very few intimate friends, either in medical school or in my various regiments. And by and large, I was more than content that this should be so.  
  
Then came Maiwand, and discharge, and finding myself alone in London in much reduced circumstances. A chance encounter with one of my old acquaintances led to my introduction to Sherlock Holmes, and I soon found myself sharing rooms with the fellow. Given my own ill health and Holmes’ eccentric hours and reserved personality, it took some time to create even the most tenuous of casual relationships with him. He seemed to have no friends, nor want any. Yet I persisted. The more I knew of Holmes, the more I wanted to know. Within a few months, my efforts bore fruit. I began to feel that Holmes was a friend indeed, and that he might feel the same way about me.  
  
That should have been enough for any man. Even at the time, I knew that Holmes’ friendship was rarely bestowed, but that once you had it, you had a friend for a lifetime. And what a friend! He was, and is, endlessly fascinating. He could often be infuriating, and occasionally cold and thoughtless even to those he cared for, but he balanced that out with firm support, a keen and dry sense of humour, and deliberate, often concealed, acts of supreme thoughtfulness.  
  
Yet I wanted more. For my fellow-lodger turned dear friend was also a man of rare beauty. That spare form was not to everyone’s tastes, but he was strong, and well built, with long clean limbs and eyes that I could drown in. And I have long known that I found both sexes equally attractive. Given Holmes’ obvious attitudes towards women, I felt fairly certain that if he inclined to any sex at all, it was not to the gentler of the two. But for the longest time, I saw no signs in him that he felt any sexual attraction to anyone. Bodies seemed to mean little or nothing to him, except as transport, or in the course of his deductions, as collections of evidence, carriers of information.  Brilliant minds could capture his interest; witness his purely intellectual admiration for the late Irene Norton, nee Adler. But even that interest lasted scarcely longer than the time it took him to solve the intellectual problem presented by the hidden picture. And I well knew that I was not brilliant in any way. I could never hope to attract him with my genius (for I had none), any more than I could with my body. Bodies were beneath his notice, as was my own repressed longing for him.  
  
I have written elsewhere that Holmes and I shared a fondness – almost a weakness – for the Turkish bath, and that it was there in the steam rooms that I found him most warm, most approachable, most human. When the rooms were crowded, we rarely exchanged more than a few words. But when the rooms were sparsely attended, or even better, empty of any others save ourselves – why then we talked of anything and everything that struck our whim: cases, the people we knew, music of all kinds, popular entertainments, books, medicine, chemistry, a thousand different things.  
  
Much of Holmes’ reserve melted away in the heat and steam of those rooms, in the camaraderie of those eclectic conversations. Sometimes I wondered if Holmes stared at me more during those discussions than he was wont to do in other circumstances. I thought that his eyes lingered on my war-battered wreck of a body, so far from what it had been in my youth.  At first I dismissed it as a sign of Holmes’ usual methods, and I wondered exactly how precisely he could read the history of my life, and particularly the disastrous end to my Army career, from the various scars on my flesh. I knew they would tell him far more than they would anyone else, including the doctors, nurses, and medics who had worked to repair the damage and save my life.  
  
But I also knew that Holmes required little more than a single glance to record every detail available. He had no need to look again, save in the most abstruse of cases. So when I noticed his eyes lingering on my body a second time, and then a third, I began to wonder, and then to hope. Could it be that he somehow found something attractive in me after all? Could he long for me as I longed for him?  
  
I hoped, but I also feared to mention anything of my own thoughts. For if I was wrong in this, if my initial assessment was correct and he had no interest in me – in anyone – after all, then any approach I might make could be perceived as an affront at best, and result in the death of our friendship at worst. I did not think he would denounce me, even if he was repelled by my revealed dual nature. But I feared that he would utterly rebuff me and withdraw from my company – or possibly even insist that I find other lodgings. I would not risk this, not even for the possibility of having more from my friend than I currently had. I dreaded the loss of his respect, of his affection, more than I longed for his embraces.  
  
Such was my situation, and so it might have continued, had a case not taken us to a certain well-known watering place in June of ’82. Holmes had been hired to ascertain the cause of the bizarre behaviour of the Honourable Miss Katherine Tracey. In the course of the investigation – the resolution of which I have recorded elsewhere – I found myself sitting quietly at a quarter of four in the afternoon, sipping a cup of tea, alone at a small table in an overly-large, over-crowded tea-room, and discreetly watching the lady in question, while Holmes, in disguise as a ginger-haired waiter, circled both the lady and her abruptly-spurned fiancé.  
  
My view of Holmes and the subjects of his investigation was abruptly blocked by a tall, well-built man dressed in an impeccable suit. I looked up and recognized the face, although it had been many years since I saw him last.  
  
“Good Lord, it is you, isn’t it, Watson?” Alfred Bickley’s handsome features broke into a delighted grin. “I wasn’t sure, not with the moustache and all, but I’d know those eyes anywhere.”  
  
Flabbergasted, I automatically rose to my feet to greet him in return, and found myself on the receiving end of a hearty handshake, both of his hands reaching out to clasp my own.  “Bickley, my word! It’s been what, over ten years since I saw you last?”  
  
“Never say so. I’ll deny it to my last breath.” He looked pointedly at the empty seat at my little table. “Are you here by yourself, then?”  
  
“Quite. And you?”  
  
“Oh, my wife is hereabouts somewhere. She does so love these sorts of places.”  
  
“You’re married then?” I was only a little surprised. I knew Bickley’s inclinations well – indeed, we had shared many an adventure together in boarding school – but I also remembered that even then he’d talked of the girl his family intended him to marry, once they both came of age.  
  
“Oh yes, ages ago. We rub along quite well together. But what of you?” He seated himself in the other chair and looked at me expectantly.  
  
There was no help for it. We spent the next ten minutes or so chatting pleasantly enough, catching up on each other’s lives while I attempted to meet at least some part of my observational duties to Holmes without Bickley noticing my divided attention. I am afraid that I did a second-rate job in both keeping a discreet eye on Miss Tracey and in avoiding Bickley discerning my distracted state. Perhaps fortunately, he attributed my distraction to another cause entirely.  
  
I started as I felt one of his hands caress my knee beneath the table. “I say, Watson,” he murmured in a low voice, inaudible to anyone but myself. “We could leave here for a bit, catch up with each other in more private circumstances. My wife won’t notice, and wouldn’t care if she did.” His voice dropped even lower. “And you are even more handsome than I remember.”  
  
I felt my cheeks turn scarlet at the blatant, obviously untrue flattery – and at the undisguised heat in Bickley’s eyes. “Have a care, man!” I hissed. “We’re in a public tea-room, for God’s sake!”  
  
“And utterly unlikely to be overheard or remarked on, if you’d only stop blushing like a rose,” Bickley drawled, a wicked, familiar twinkle in his eyes. “You always did colour up in the most charming way." His face changed slightly. “Or have you given it up?”  
  
“No, I - ” I broke off, utterly at a loss as to how to continue that sentence. ‘ _No, I have not given it up, but I am hopelessly enamoured with the man with whom I share rooms, cases, and interests, even though there is no sign that he ever sees anyone, much less myself, in a romantic light?’_ Hardly. _‘No, I found you attractive once, but you pale in comparison to the one I long for now, and no matter how much I might crave the temporary physical relief, I could not bear the contrast between what you could give me and what I wish I had?’_ Again, not likely. _‘No, I think I might be in love, and no one else holds any interest for me?’_ Truest statement of all, and equally impossible to articulate to anyone, much less Bickley. “I just don’t think it would be wise,” I stammered at last. “Besides, you said it yourself: you are married. You took vows.”  
  
Bickley threw his head back and laughed. “Good old Watson. You really haven’t changed much, have you? You always did take such things seriously.” He chortled, regarding me with merry eyes. “But I was perfectly serious when I said she wouldn’t mind. She and I get on very well together, and understand each other extremely. She has her interests, I have mine, and as long as we are both discreet, we do not interfere with each other. In fact - ”  
  
“More tea, sir? And would the other gentleman care for anything?”  
  
The all too familiar voice had a completely unfamiliar bite to it. I looked up and saw Holmes, still in disguise as a waiter, staring at Bickley with a remarkable expression: one compounded equally of loathing, disdain, and…  Dear God.  _Jealousy_?  Surely that must be wishful thinking on my part. Holmes could not possibly be jealous of… He could not actually think I…  
  
For his part, Bickley looked almost as disconcerted as I felt. Presumably because he feared he – we – had been overheard after all, and not for my own personal reasons. “No, no, my good man, I just realized that I am expected elsewhere.” He shot Holmes another nervous glance before giving me a patently false smile. “Thank you for allowing me to share your table for a moment. It was most kind of you to offer a stranger a seat.”  
  
“Not at all,” I replied faintly. “Good day to you.”  
  
“Yes, good day.”  
  
Bickley hurried off, but I hardly saw him go. All my attention was fixed on Holmes. I opened my mouth, then shut it again, completely at a loss for what to say. For his part, Holmes did nothing to help me, but continued to stare at me with those pale grey eyes. His face had closed off as soon as Bickley rose, and remained unreadable to me despite my every effort to discern what he might be thinking. Finally I remembered what I had been supposed to be doing. “Holmes, I am sorry. I am afraid that I completely lost track of Miss Tracey after…  I was distracted.”  
  
“Yes.” Holmes stared at me a moment longer, and then he visibly shifted his mind to a different track. His face lit up with his usual keen enthusiasm while on a case. “And speaking of distractions, I believe I have found the source of the Honourable Miss Tracey’s unusual behaviour.  Finish your tea, Watson and meet me outside in ten minutes.”  
  
He turned to go, but paused when I was unable to suppress a small sound – half confusion, half frustration, all need. “Later, Watson,” he murmured, for my ears alone. “We must talk – but later, after this case is done.”  
  
The cases always came first. I knew this even then, knew that this would always be true. I accepted it without question, without qualm, for I recognized that just as a surgeon must put the patient on the table above all other concerns, so Holmes must do the same with the case lying before him. Neither profession brooked anything less, for both depended on the utter focus of the individual to save lives. So I pushed aside my own feelings, took a deep breath, rose to my feet, paid my bill, and went out the door to find and follow Holmes.  
  
The next few hours were filled with adrenaline. Holmes’ case took a turn for the unexpected, and resulted in a frantic pursuit, a forceful confrontation with the spurned fiancé, and an incident with a trained poodle that I really prefer not to recall. By the time the affair came to a conclusion, it was nearly midnight.  It took some hours to make our way back to Baker Street, and all during that time, my mind kept replaying the look on Holmes’ face, the tone of his voice when he told me that we must talk. What had he meant? What had he been thinking – feeling?  Did he even remember saying such a thing? What was he thinking now? I desperately wished I could read his mind, as he often seemed to read mine. But as ever, he remained an enigma to me. He sat silently, apparently wrapped in his own thoughts, barely acknowledging my presence. I could only hope that he was not sinking into one of his post-case malaises. I could not decide whether I hoped he remembered his promise, or whether I feared it.  
  
Mrs. Hudson was long abed by the time we returned to our sitting room. The fire in the grate was banked, but I soon coaxed it back to life. I should have been exhausted, but I felt far too wound up to sleep. It did not take any of Holmes’ deductive skills to see that my friend was in a similar state. He fiddled with his unlit pipe, turning it over and over in his hands while I fussed with tinder and coal. Finally, once I took my own chair, he tapped the bowl of the pipe twice against his palm and then set it aside.  
  
“You must be wondering, Watson, why I acted as I did to interrupt the discussion you were having with your old boarding school chum.”  
  
I blinked, astonished, and wondered if I had somehow fallen into a dream. Certainly the lateness of the hour, the utter quiet, the dim gas-light in the room, and the flicker of the newly awakened fire, all combined to give the atmosphere an unworldly, almost dreamlike quality. It was the kind of hour, and the type of circumstance, that allows men to speak of things that ordinarily would remain locked deep within their breasts. So it was for me, and even Holmes seemed not entirely immune to the effects. “However did you know Bickley was with me in boarding school?”  
  
Holmes smiled thinly. “It was not a difficult inference to make. You and he clearly shared an intimacy at one time, but your behaviour made it clear that it had been some time ago, and your current tastes suggest that Bickley was either a youthful… indulgence, one made before your preferences and judgment had fully formed, or a later misstep. The way he approached you made the latter seem less likely than the former.”  
  
“Holmes - ” I started to protest, but he waved me silent.  
  
“Have no fear, my friend. I was not unaware of your… open mindedness, shall we say, in matters of intimacy and attraction, even before I saw you and your old friend together.”  
  
“And you do not mind?” I held my breath, waiting for his answer.  
  
Holmes shook his head. “By no means. It would hardly be fair of me if I did.”  
  
“Then do you…” I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. I summoned all of my courage and began again. “Are you also, er, open minded?”  
  
“Not in the sense that you mean.” Holmes must have seen something in my expression, for he hurried on. “You find beauty in both sexes, Watson. I have seen it. Whereas I - I find only one truly desirable. The male gender, as it happens.” A faint flush rose across his cheekbones, the barest tint of colour on his usually pale face. “The female form has never held much interest for me, any more than the typical female mind. I believe that some men in medical fields are terming this as ‘inversion.’” He said the words calmly enough, but I could see the tension in his jaw and in the rigid way he held himself in his chair.  
  
“It is only the latest in names for a preference that has been part of the human condition since antiquity,” I said, voicing the opinion I had developed over many years of thinking on it. I was well aware that modern society condemned a man who preferred other men as the objects of his desire. I was equally well aware that such men were to be found throughout human history, and that unlike ourselves, the Greeks and Romans – among others – had found nothing shameful in such preferences.  I would share these thoughts with Holmes, but later. For the moment, my only concern was that he feel no fear in revealing so much of himself to me. “As for you, I have long suspected, even hoped, as much,” I confessed in a low voice. “But you seemed so indifferent to everyone, I thought it might simply be that you had no sexual interests of any kind.”  
  
“No, I am not yet such a perfect reasoning machine that I am immune to Cupid’s arrow, or Eros’ urges. But in some ways you were, and are, correct, in that my appreciation is largely theoretical, not practical.”  
  
I was startled all over again. “But you also went to boarding school, did you not, and then to university?”  
  
Holmes nodded once. “I am not unaware of certain aspects of boarding school life, Watson. Indeed, I experienced – or nearly experienced – them myself.” He gave me a thin, pained smile. “Although it is clear that your youthful interludes were far happier than mine.”  
  
That was the last thing I had expected to hear. “Good God, Holmes. Do you mean to say - ”  
  
As usual, Holmes anticipated my thought. “No, no. Nothing like that, my dear Watson. I was not abused, as you so clearly fear. In fact, my encounters at boarding school – at least of that type – were practically non-existent.” His eyes met mine with grave candour, seemingly calm, but I saw him worry his lower lip between his teeth before he deliberately continued. “I had once intended otherwise. I have always been curious about anything that captures my interest, you see. So when I found myself at school, with all the opportunities inherent in that place, and certain urges making themselves known, I actively sought chances to increase my knowledge. I became aware of specific overtures, and gladly encouraged them as best I could. Eventually I was invited to pay a visit to another boy’s room at a particular hour, at a time when I knew he would have the chamber to himself. But through a curious chance, I wound up working late on a chemistry paper and utterly forgetting the invitation to… Well, I shall not name him. Even then, in the throes of excitable youth, intellectual problems held far more sway over me than physical urges. Suffice it to say that I forgot and did not go to the other boy’s room.”  
  
This did not entirely surprise me, that my friend would prefer an interesting chemical problem to a sexual encounter, even as a boy. “Surely you had other opportunities?”  
  
“I might have, but I deliberately did not go looking for them, and actively discouraged any overtures after that fateful evening. My absentmindedness that night had a profound effect on my future career. It was a fortunate oversight for me, as it proved, for the invitation was not what I had thought. I had assumed that the boy – who was two years ahead of my form – meant well. Was interested in me, as I was in him, not just in his body and the excitement of the fleeting touches we exchanged, but as a person, even possibly a friend.” Holmes’ voice went flat, but he continued on, staring into a past I could not see. “As it happened, he and another, his closest friend, were caught with another boy my age on that very night – due in large part to the younger boy’s cries of protest. They were all summarily sent down. It was only the merest chance that I was not among their number. That near-miss experience left me determined not to risk any such thing happening to me. Experimentation – gratification with another, instead of simply taking care of my needs with my own hand – none of it was worth the possible cost.”  
  
My heart ached for my friend. Holmes had been attracted to that other boy, had trusted him, and had been deeply hurt by his duplicity and wickedness. Little wonder Holmes had never trusted another enough again to…  
  
 _Dear God_. Holmes, my esoteric, supremely intelligent, always confident friend, was a virgin.  
  
Once again, my face proved an open book for Holmes to read as he wished. “Yes, Watson. As I said earlier, my knowledge of what…” Most unusually, my friend seemed to struggle for words to express himself. I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen Holmes near speechless, and still have the use of most of my fingers. But Holmes persevered, as he always did. “My direct knowledge of what pleasure might be found in the company of another is lacking; what I know, I have learned from observation and from study. But theory, however sound or well researched, is not the same as practice.”  
  
From the expression on his face and the intensity of his gaze, Holmes clearly wanted me to say something in return. “No, it is not.” I took a deep, calming breath and then continued, risking everything in a few simple words. “Would you like to move beyond theory, Holmes?” I swallowed. “With me?”  
  
“Yes.” Holmes said the word simply, but there was a world of emotion shining in his grey eyes. “There is no one else I would rather trust.”  
  
Wild arousal coursed through me at his simple affirmative. I was already half-hard, and at that one word, I felt my member twitch and jump with excitement. Yet despite myself, I felt a pang. That Holmes trusted me was wonderful, but if that was all that it was, then I was a convenience for his curiosity, nothing more. He did not desire me for myself, but for what he could learn, what he could experience. Sternly, I forced my selfish disappointment down.  The reasons did not matter. What mattered was the chance to have Holmes in my arms. What mattered was that he wanted me, here, tonight, for whatever cause. Nothing else could be more important than that, not even my own wistful longings for a more romantic interest in my person, rather than this scientific curiosity. I would not let it matter.  
  
Carefully, I rose from my chair and walked to where Holmes still sat in his, watching my every move. I leaned down until my face was but a few inches from his, close enough to feel his breath on my skin, but just far enough away that I could read anything there was to see in his expression. “Holmes, are you sure?”  
  
A familiar look of impatience crossed those features, masking a faint hint of nervousness beneath. “Watson, when have you ever known me to be uncertain of anything? Of course I am sure.” I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “But let me be perfectly clear. I want this. I want you.”  
  
Warmth pooled in my groin and in my chest. “Then you have me.” I leaned forward, placed my hands on Holmes’ shoulders, and brought my lips to his.  
  
Kissing Sherlock Holmes for the first time was awkward, to tell the blunt truth of it. His lips were stiff at first, frozen and hesitant beneath my own. Clearly he had not been lying when he had told me his experience was limited. But Holmes was not the first inexperienced person I had ever kissed, and I set to work with a will. Under the encouragement of my hands, lips, and tongue, Holmes’ mouth softened. He angled his head, bringing his mouth into fuller contact with my own. Soon I felt the first probing touches of his tongue on my lips and against my own gently questing tongue. His hands, which had been gripping the arms of his chair, came up to touch my forearms, then my shoulders, and finally my back and head. I murmured my approval and deepened my kisses while running one hand through his hair. Abruptly, Holmes tugged me closer, into his lap, so that I was straddling his legs and resting against him, chest to chest, practically groin to groin.  
  
After that, the kisses and caresses grew rather wonderful, not to mention heated. Before long, I had managed to loosen his collar and unbutton his shirt, exposing his neck and upper chest to my attentions. He was not slow to return the favour.  
  
I quickly discovered that despite his obvious inexperience, Holmes was by no means shy or uncertain about what he wanted. I should have known that his dominant, forceful personality would be much the same even in these scarcely hoped-for circumstances. He was also an extraordinarily quick learner. When a finger flicked across one of his flat, pink nipples caused him to suck in a shocked, excited breath, he lost no time in opening my shirt front to investigate whether I would have a similar reaction. When I ground my hips down into his lap, he immediately thrust his upwards to increase the friction. When I sucked on his collarbone hard enough to bring blood to the surface and make him moan, it was only a minute later before he tried the same thing on my throat.  
  
“No, wait, Holmes,” I cautioned, torn between frantic desire and innate caution. “You may mark me all you like, but only where my clothes will cover up the traces.”  
  
Holmes’ pupils were blown wide, but I saw comprehension flicker in their depths. “Yes, of course, I should have thought of that.” How he could sound simultaneously so rational and so utterly confused was beyond me – and it was absolutely endearing. I smiled and guided his face to my chest, relishing the immediate feel of his tongue against my skin, the pleasurable sting of his teeth as he gently bit down, the suction of his lips, his hot breath as he pulled back just enough to admire his work. “Yes,” he growled, and the pure possessive joy in his voice made my already impossibly hard cock ache that much more.  
  
“Do you like that?” I asked breathlessly.  
  
“Oh yes,” Holmes answered at once. “I had not realized what a variety of kisses there were, or how giving them would feel compared to getting them.”  An unexpected touch of his hand against the bulging cloth of my trousers, and the sensations that pressure caused the engorged flesh beneath the cloth, made me gasp. “But I believe there is much more for me to learn…?”  
  
“Much,” I agreed, struggling for coherence. Holmes continued to run his fingertips lightly across my erection. I sensed it was more out of curiosity than a deliberate attempt to derail my thoughts, but the effect was still the same. “How… how would you like to be brought off?” I managed to ask. “I could use my hands, or my mouth, or…”  
  
“Everything. I want to try all of these things. Everything.”  
  
I chuckled, although I was now so hard I was seeing stars, and was in some danger of finishing while still in my trousers. “We can do everything, eventually, but unless your stamina is still what it was as a schoolboy, I am afraid that we cannot do all of these things in one night. It takes time to recover, afterwards, you know.” From the look on his face, I wasn’t sure that he had known, and I hurried on. “For now, I think you should choose one method you would like to try. Then, afterwards, we will see if we can manage another. And if not tonight, then another night.”  
  
Holmes looked visibly pleased at the idea of another night, of the reassurance that this experimentation – as I supposed he would call it – was not a singular occurrence. “You make a good point, Watson. There is no need for haste.”  
  
“Well, some need,” I said, not willing to let Holmes have it all his way. I ground down on him, making sure to provide as much friction against his erection as I could, and rejoiced as I saw his eyelids flutter.  
  
“God, yes.”  Holmes focused back on my face with a visible effort. “But your suggestion remains sound.”  
  
“So what would you have of me?” I coaxed, when it became clear that Holmes was not going to say anything more in the immediate future. “What would you like to try?”  
  
Holmes bit his lip, worrying the lower part between his teeth, and I realised that he was actually nervous. I could have kicked myself. In the wake of his enthusiasm and rapid progress, I had temporarily forgotten that _all_ of this was new to Holmes, and that he might not actually know all the possible ways I might bring him to glory, much less be comfortable asking for it. “Or would you like me to choose?” I added hastily.  
  
“Did you mean it when you said we could do everything?”  
  
I brought Holmes’ right hand up and placed a lingering kiss against the pulse-point in his wrist before answering. From the way I could feel the blood pounding beneath my lips, I could guess that there was something that Holmes specifically wanted of me. “Everything and anything,” I assured him. “I cannot claim universal expertise, but if it is something I know how to do, I will do it. And if it is something I do not know how to do, we can learn it together, if you wish. And if you would rather let me make the decision about how to finish, I will do that, too.” I kissed his wrist again, lightly laving the sensitive flesh there with my tongue before deliberately rubbing my moustache over the saliva-slick, aroused skin. “So, is there something you want to try first, or do you wish me to surprise you?”  
  
I felt Holmes’ heartbeat flutter even more frantically, but his voice was perfectly steady, betraying none of the turmoil that set his heart pounding. “May I take you?”  
  
The request caught me utterly off guard. On the one hand, he could hardly have expressed a preference that was more in line with my own fantasies. I had dreamed of him taking me even more often than I had imagined taking him. On the other hand, the request was hardly what I would have expected to hear from a virgin – but then again, this was Holmes. Expecting the expected was utterly futile where my friend was concerned.  I almost asked him if he was certain, but knew instinctively that questioning Holmes about his desires would be the worst possible thing I could do. It had been many years since I had been loved in such a fashion, and Holmes could not know any of the practical aspects of it, but I did not hesitate. “Yes, if that is what you want,” I told him with as much calm confidence in my voice as I could muster. “I have dreamed of it, in fact.”  
  
I felt Holmes’ erection press even more firmly against me as his eyes widened with surprise and heightened arousal. “You have?”  
  
“Yes.” Incredible as it seemed, I realized Holmes was not entirely aware of the depths of my own desire, or of my many-months’ attachment to him. “I have wanted you for a long time.”  
  
Holmes made no verbal answer to this, but instead pulled my face back to his and kissed me with incredible fervour. By the time we broke apart again, we were both gasping for breath. “I believe we should retire to my room,” I panted.  
  
“My room is closer,” Holmes murmured, his voice gone husky and deep with passion.  
  
“But mine is further from anyone who might overhear. And you might discover that it takes some practice to be silent, or quiet, during sex.” Part of me hoped that Holmes would find the experience overwhelming enough to overcome his habitual reserve. I wanted to know what his voice sounded like when climax wrenched cries from his throat. The other part of me hoped even more fervently to remain undetected, unsuspected, by any but the man who was about to become my lover.  
  
I felt the muscles of Holmes’ face move as he smiled. “Always watching out for my welfare,” he murmured. “Dear Watson. I will follow your lead in this. Your room it is.”  
  
The stairs up to my room had never seemed longer. I could sense Holmes’ impatience as easily as my own. I carefully closed the blinds over my one little window, screening us from any possibility of being observed. Then I turned to Holmes, sitting gingerly on one side of my bed and staring at me as if he was a starving man and I was a banquet. I could sympathize entirely with that feeling.  
  
It truly began then. We carefully divested each other of every article of clothing, baring skin to each other’s sight and touch. Holmes was unabashedly curious about every part of me, wanting to touch and taste and examine everything, and of course I let him. I tried to be a little more romantic with my own attentions to his body. I could not tell him how I truly felt in words, but I could worship him with lips and caresses, even as I learned further lessons about what made him shiver with pleasure or thrust involuntarily into the air.  
  
Like many men, I keep a tin of ointment in my bedside table, for helping ease my own flesh. I showed Holmes that tin, and instructed him in how to use its contents to prepare me for what we intended to do. It was my hand that smeared the cool substance onto his fingers. It was my hand that guided him to my entrance, my voice that told him how to stroke the perimeter, how to ease one finger inside, and then another. It was my careful guidance that helped him find my prostate, my moans and cries of pleasure that informed him of the ecstasy to be found there. It was my hand that carefully smoothed more ointment over his rigid, straining cock, preparing him for breaching me. And finally, reverently, I guided him to me, placing his tip against my lubricated, willing flesh.  
  
“Now, Holmes,” I groaned, feeling the blunt pressure and heat of him. “Oh, my dear, now.”  
  
And with that encouragement, Holmes pushed into me, a slow, constant pressure until he was in me to the hilt. Despite our preparations, it stung, but that minor pain was nothing compared to the erotic delight of feeling him within me, hearing his half-strangled cry of bliss as he first experienced the overwhelming pleasure of being sheathed by another man’s flesh.  
  
The process of penetration had subdued my own arousal to some degree, but hearing Holmes’ panting cries and knowing the pleasure I was giving him quickly reawakened my own ardour. I placed one well-slicked hand against my reviving erection and began to stroke myself firmly. I knew that Holmes would not last long. The profound newness of the experience and the intense sensations would bring him to the brink in a very few strokes. Indeed, his thrusting was erratic from the start, and in less than a minute, I felt him stiffen as his muscles went rigid with his first climax shared with another. His fingers dug into my flesh in a spasmodic, unthinking grip hard enough to leave bruises. A series of high cries ripped from his throat, and I felt the warmth of his release pulse deep inside me. I babbled tender encouragement to him as I continued to stroke myself, and the intensely erotic knowledge that I had been the first and only man to share this experience with Holmes helped bring me to my own swift completion.  
  
Afterwards, Holmes seemed content to lie in my arms while we both panted for breath, sated and dazed with the afterglow of our climaxes. Gradually, our heart rates and breathing returned to normal, but he still remained silent. Somewhat concerned, I pressed a kiss to his sweat-dampened skin. “Well?” I asked softly.  
  
“Very well.” Holmes’ voice was soft, languid, and his grey eyes held the distant, almost abstracted expression I usually only saw when he was making his most brilliant deductions. “Is it always like this?”  
  
“Yes, and no,” I told him. “It is always wonderful, but it becomes even more so with practice.” And with your choice of partner, I did not add.  
  
“I cannot begin to imagine how.” I felt Holmes’ lips brush across my skin, mouthing kisses as he traced a line from my neck to my shoulder.  “Thank you, my dear, dear Watson.”  
  
I smiled. “Thank _you_ , Holmes.”  
  
His eyes started to drift shut. From the utter limpness of his muscles, I could feel that my Holmes was on the edge of falling asleep. Neither of us could risk his spending the remainder of the night in my bed. We would need to clean ourselves up, make sure our clothing was separated and in order, and Holmes would have to retire to his own room. But I was willing to chance an hour or so, and I desperately wanted to keep holding him, to feel him find sleep while pressed against me. “Watson?” he murmured sleepily.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“The next time, I want you to take me, so I can learn how it is done by someone who knows what he is doing.”  
  
“Whatever you want, my dearest Holmes.” I kissed him again, and felt him sigh as he fell asleep. “It will be my pleasure.”  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “I have a huge kink for virgin!Holmes...”   
> Originally posted December 8, 2011


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